


Zero ticks of Freedom

by ridiculousinaction



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Galra are really mean, Gin swears a lot, I'll put a warning if you tell me to in the comments, Made-up alien species, Oh god, Tags Are Hard, What else should I even tag?, blood-warning!, discontinued, especially food, kinda gore-y, made-up language, slight warning for blood, story told mostly from oc's POV, supplies are hard to get, there's too many poor people, this might get brutal, this went out of hand
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-10 03:08:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ridiculousinaction/pseuds/ridiculousinaction
Summary: 9900 deca-phoebs of tyranny. 100 deca-phoebs of struggle. 0 ticks of freedom.The paladins receive a distress signal of an old trraiding aquaintance of Altea: The planet Zefria struggles against Galran forces that attempt to tacke back over after 100 deca-phoebs of successful rebellion.The paladins decide to rush to their aid, but a lot of damage was already done. The team gets seperated, and Keith and Lance crash on one of the planet's Islands.Gin, a local inhabitant from poverty offers them her help.[DISCONTINUED!]





	1. Under Attack

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, y'all! Hi there!
> 
> This is the first story i'm uploading here, so I want to appologize for any messy style you might Encounter. My english is entirely dependant on School lessons and Google translate and this isn't beta-read, that means it's fresh from the word-document because I'm excited.  
> I would apprechiate any feedback on it as I still have a long way to go until I got a refined style...  
> Now, I won't Keep you waiting any longer. Here you go!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything on Zefria's starting to go to hell already, while the paladins discuss if it's safe to investigate the mysterious call for help.

Zefria, a planet-wide monarchy, has been through a lot in the last 10’000 deca-phoebs. It used to be a peaceful planet that seems to be one big city, torn into pieces by the oceans.

The planet is inhabited by Zefrians, an alteanoid species with graceful wings that share a striking resemblance to the wings of earth butterflies. Just like earth butterfly wings, they could have very different shapes and colours, depending on the melanin in the wing’s scales. Most of the population bears short, bland wings though.  
The wings are incredibly tender, and most of the zefrian population never learns to fly, because they simply can’t lift off their body mass from the ground. The few Zefrians, that could though, take incredible pride in their superior strength. They do everything to enhance the beauty of their wings, spending a lot of time on cleaning them or even painting the scales to have the most stunning wings.

The flying population of Zefria has, over the span of multiple generations, raised in the social ranks of the population, until the royality was elected from their best, and certainly most beautiful-winged. That is the birth of the Zakiri-Line, and the three houses of Zefria.  
That was, when the ‘outworlders’ found their way to Zefria, and they were welcomed with open arms by the population. Through trade, the upper caste reached incredible welfare, while the poverty’s rates rised rapidly.

Everybody was hit by surprise when their altean Allies suddenly got evaporated by the Galra. They had no other choice but to give in. The population was ordered to stand down. The royal family had to give up their reign for the sake of their people.  
But at least, there was no bloodshed.

* * *

 

Nao barely dodges the attack from the galra drone, rolling sideways in her own fighter. Underneath her helmet, some of her long, peach-coloured hair moves into her field of vision and she huffs in annoyance. Everything is just going downhill. They represent the last resistance against the galra occupation. One hundred deca-phoebs, and everything their civilisation worked for is about to crumble.

«This is unbelievable! They’re everywhere», Ezra, the only one of her teammates that is still in the air, exclaims, yelping when a galra manages to hit his engines. He furiously flaps his already messy wings briefly, trying to get the numb feeling from leaning on them on the seat for too long out of them. A few of his only naturally blue scales have fallen out, leaving even less colour in his bland, brownish-grey wings. He glances at one single blue scale on the ground, frowning.

“Quiznack! Careful, Ezra! There’s one right behind you!”, Princess Seilyn, the youngest child of the royal family, shouts, forced to watch from the ground as her friends attempt to protect their beloved home-planet. She bangs her fist onto the sensitive machinery projecting the situation in Zefria’s orbit, causing a cup to fly up in the air and spill its contents all over the projector.

“No!”, she exclaims. The projector short-circuits, sparks flying from the control panel. Her bright-amber eyes widen in shock about her reckless action. Now she has no idea what’s going on up there. She pulls at her platin-blonde curls in frustration and she flaps her transparent wings. A few scales are coloured in a radiant emerald green, but the rest of the wings is completely transparent. Princess Seilyn kicks the machinery once before she rushes over to the enormous glass windows of the communications tower. The battle is visible in the sky, and worry about Zefria's only pilots that are willing to fly is filling her.

The princess folds her hands together, closing her eyes and mumbling a quick prayer, hoping that her friends would be safe. Their bravery has always been exceptional from both of them. Seilyn would prefer to be up there with them. When she hears the hiss of the automatic doors behind her, she rapidly spins around to face the intruder.

At first, she doesn’t recognize the knight from House Primée, and her shoulders tense. He's completely at the wrong place, making her slightly suspicious at first. His face is covered up by the darkened visor of his helmet, and that doesn't help her suspicions in any way. She only recognizes the advisor of her father when he finally raises his voice. “Your Majesty. the king gave orders to evacuate the palace. You have to come with me, now”, he orders. Seilyn shakes her head defiantly.

“I’m not running from the galra!”, she hisses, spreading her wings in annoyance to make herself seem more intimidating. She isn't sure why he is telling her that, he should know better than to try to tell her the fact that she already knows. Also, he made a big mistake by ordering her around, infuriating her. The royal advisor approaches her, pulling out a small device from under his purple cape, unnoticed by the princess. 

“That was an order”, he growls, now towering over her. Seilyn is about to strangle him, infuriated by his attempt to order her around.

That’s the moment when she realizes, that she is facing an imposter. His strange stance, as well as his slightly mispitched voice give him away. "You're a quiznacking imposter... Askan would never dare to order me around!", she roars. The princess doesn’t hesitate for any second, immediately attacking him. Her movements are hindered by her turquoise dress though, resulting in the imposter gaining the upper hand in their fight and getting the chance to knock her out with an electric shock from the device in his hands. Seilyn yelps in pain, before losing consciousness. Her wings go limp completely, alongside her body. She falls forward into the intruder’s waiting arms, who catches her with ease before flinging her body over his right shoulder. An evil smirk creeps its way onto his face.

"Mission is going according to plan. The firefly is down. You may proceed, commander", the mysterious figure mumbles, sending his message to the battlecruisers orbiting the planet.

At the same moment, Nao is hit by a volley from the enemy’s canons, rendering her immobilized when the engines of her zefrian light fighter are damaged by a few hits. She gives off a loud, colourful string of varying swears from multiple languages that she picked up over the deca-phoebs when her left wing gets folded up in a painful way upon impact, squished together between her seat and her back.

“Nao! Hang on! I’m on my way!”, Ezra exclaims, turning around his own, already damaged fighter to intercept her attackers.

“Idiot! Don’t! They'll hit you, too! FOCUS!”, she shouts, before another volley hits her. She screams loudly in pain.

“NAO!”, Ezra yells, flying some complicated maneuvers to avoid the fire of the remaining fleet. All the fire is concentrated on him. “M’tkar!”, he shouts, hitting his head on the controls when another volley hits him, leaving him knocked out.

* * *

 

Lance yelps when the castle’s alarm goes off unexpectedly, jumping up from his seat on the bridge. He somehow dozed off there earlier. Allura gasps, already motioning for the alert’s details to be projected to the main screen. "What the quiznack? Allura! What's going on?", he exclaims, trying to get his own heartbeat and breathing back under control.

“Judging from the reports here, the castle received an urgend signal”, she explains, trying to pinpoint its origin. Pidge, seated in her own seat, frowns, pulling up the signal on her smaller screen.

In that moment, the other paladins rush onto the bridge. “What’s going on?”, Shiro demands to know, looking at the green paladin first, before looking at the Princess.

“Are we under attack?”, Hunk asks, rushing to his seat, already panicking.

“Nope. We picked up a signal... That’s an encrypted message alright, but I’m not sure if it really is a distress signal. It could be some random communications that the castle could’ve picked up”, Pidge explains briefly, turning around to face her friends.

“Do we know where it’s coming from?”, Keith asks, taking his seat as well.

“No, not yet. I can’t really get a hold of the transmission. Pidge?”, Allura states, turning to the green paladin. Pidge nods, pushing her glasses back up her nose.

“Already on it, but this could take a little, depending on the encryption that was used”, she states, when she interrupts herself, “Scratch that, I got it.” Pidge furrows her brows.

“And? Where’s it coming from?”, Shiro asks, walking over to her seat and leaning over her shoulder to look at where Pidge pinpointed the signal’s origins. With one touch on her screen, the results are then transfered over to the big screen.

“Uhm, it’s coming from the _Xa-Daito_ -system, I can’t really pinpoint any more exact coordinates though. The signal’s been distorted heavily by space”, Pidge explains, zooming in on the system’s projection on the big screen.

“ _Xa-Daito_? Hm… That’s familiar, somehow…”, Allura mumbles. Besides the projection of the system, Coran’s own projection pops up. The advisor has been busy with some _Telladuv_ -readjustments and repais until now.

“Well, certainly, Princess! Your father just recently established trade with its inhabitants, before the destruction of Altea! The Lyri’i and the Zefrians are very kind people, and they apparently love altean bits and pieces. The bits that sparkle like the stars al least...”, he informs everybody.

That’s when the signal dies out, startling the team, as well as the two alteans. “Hey! Where’d the signal go?!”, Lance exclaims in surprise.

“Not good, I think the signal is being blocked by cosmic interferences…”, Hunk mumbles, typing on his own Screen, trying to identify any reasons for the signal's sudden dissapearance. After a few ticks, he verifies his assumption, that at least something is blocking the signal from reaching them.

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go check it out”, Keith states. Shiro tilts his head.

“I don’t know, this might be a bad idea. Who knows what’s going on there? We could be lured into a trap”, Shiro interjects, "Besides, we still don't have any exact location. The _Xa-Daito_ -system seems pretty big." Hunk nods in agreement.

“But what if this is no trap? There could be somebody in Need of help!”, Pidge then states.

“I agree with Pidge. It’s our job as paladins, we’re the defenders of the universe after all", Lance agrees, looking at the others.

Allura furrows her brows in concentration, before she turns towards Coran’s transmission.  
“Coran, what is the situation of the _Telladuv_?”, she asks.

“It’s as good as new with those new, improved lenses. We’re good to go”, he responds, twirling his moustache with his left hand while pointing at the _Telladuv’s_ closed door behind him.

“Then there’s nothing in our way to investigate the distress call”, Allura says, “It doesn’t hurt to go look.”

“Well, that worked really well last time with the whole incident with the smugglers”, Hunk huffs.

“Aw c’mon, Hunk! It can’t happen every time, you know?”, Lance whines, pouting at Hunk.

“Guys, I got the message decrypted! Check it out, it’s a distress call! I don’t like what I’m reading here, though”, Pidge informs the others, putting the contents of the message up on the big screen besides the data on the system itself.

“That’s zefrian, to be exact the high dialect! Unbelievable! Even after ten-thousand deca-phoebs, their monarchy still seems to be in its full glory”, Coran states, surprise filling his voice.

“We can’t hesitate any longer. The people of Zefria need the help of Voltron. We must hurry!”, Allura decides, voicing her definitive decision, "If we help them, they might help us in our fight against Zarkon." She starts typing in the coordinates of their next destination.

“This is a really bad idea, you know?”, Hunk states, sighing in discontent. Lance, Pidge and Keith groan, while Shiro rolls his eyes in amusement.

“Everybody, prepare for our wormhole-jump!”, Allura orders.

* * *

 

Gin tugs her light-sunset-pink locks into a loose ponytail, while watching the end of their one-hundred deca-phoebs of freedom end with the disappearance of the explosions in the sky. The battlefield resembles fancy fireworks in the evening sky. It's already dawn and this fight has been going on for about half of a varga. On the darkened horizon she can already spot the first few constellations.

When the fireworks fade, Gin can feel a tug at her heart.

“That’s it, I guess. Nao and Ezra have been defeated”, she whispers. Her mother died for this fight, as well as her father. All that’s left to the turquoise-eyed girl is a chance that her older cousin Ezra might have only been captured and not blown up into cosmic dust. 

She's done with this war since a few years. Why can't it just stop? It already took her parents from her and left her all alone. Without Ezra, she wouldn't be here anymore. His parents have fled from the capital to the wilderness, leaving him behind. He stayed to fight, not letting himself give up.

In her fist, she crushes a bit of her puffed pastry, which she doesn’t even like that much. But it’s all she has been able to afford lately.

Food is expensive after all. And now with the galra winning the war, she might not even get one meal a day. The few, greedy merchants have become cruel, setting the Prices for even dehydrated rations onto a surreal height. Soon she'll only be able to afford those tasteless rations. And after... She doesn't really want to think about it.

But that’s not the only worries she has. She’s afraid of what the galra will do with Capital City.

_Will they tear it down, just like they did deca-phoebs ago?_

A shiver runs down her spine, when the last daylight fades away, making space for the beauty of the _Xa-Daito_ -Nebula’s true beauty. In the distance, she spots Lyron, which is barely bigger than a copper coin to her, the fourth of a Price for a ration. She doesn't really care about it anymore.  

“What are they going to do with our people?”, she whispers, staring at the, now menacingly well-visible galra warships in front of Zefria's only moon. Gin spots three of the big ships.

“The flagships… They’re so close already…”, she whispers, when the incredible feeling of fear sparks in her. She feels like something bad is about to happen, and those feelings have sadly been very right lately. She considered telling people their future, but nobody pays for that anymore, so that plan crumbled.

She gets up from the concrete of the roof that she’s been laying on for the past few vargas.

That’s when she sees it.   
A bright purple light from one of the ships.

“Oh no”, she whispers and her heart skips a beat.

“A sudden, bright-purple star…”, she mumbles, reciting the exact words from one of the merchants. The star suddenly erupts into a bright beam of energy, directed directly at Capital City. Gin yelps in surprise.

This is not what she expected.

When the beam hits, the whole ground shakes and she almost gets thrown off her feet. “ _M’tkar_!”, she curses, when she loses her balance, hitting her elbow on the concrete.

She picks herself up from the Floor, muttering a few more curses, looking at the remains of dinner she accidentally dropped. Gin whines. That Food would be about 30 copper coins of wasted money. _'What a waste'_ , she thinks, growling at herself.

That's when she raises her gaze from the Floor to the horizon. She stares in the direction of Capital City, gasping at the sight.

The big tower at the landing platforms of the capital…  
 _It’s gone._

Gin throws herself onto the floor once again, when another blast hits, this time apparently targeting the suburb island that she calls her home. The ground shakes violently and Gin feels, how the building she’s standing on is tumbling sideways. Her ears ring from the loud explosion.

“Argh! I need to get off here! They’re trying to drown the island!”, she exclaims, panicking. There’s no way though for her to leave over the staircase before the building collapses. The Island lost its support in the ocean somehow. She sees a few waves flood the streets with saltwater.

“Well, here goes nothing…”, she mumbles, having the stupid idea to attempt to fly. It’s Gin’s best bet at least. She glances at her, disappointing, ugly wings. They’re a bland Brown mixed with Grey and the only spots of colour being on the insides: two big, blue eyes. Then, there's the fact that her wings are abnormally shaped. Ever since she was small, her wings never grew right. They are curled in a weird way, making it difficult for her to even stretch out her wings. How is she supposed to Keep herself in the air long enough?

She takes a step back, before running towards the edge as fast as she zefrily can. She yelps when she’s in the air, not able to fly really. It’s more of a clumsy gliding to the ground, thrown around by the winds created by the energy-beam's impact.

She winces in pain when she hits the floor, folding her wing in a weird angle when she hits the ground. For one moment, she’s dizzy, trying to re-orient herself. She glances at her aching right wing. “This ain’t good…”, she mumbles, trying to get up. When she’s finally back on her feet, she hurries towards her best way of escape: The connecting bridge between Capital City and her home-island. It’s that insignificant, the officials didn’t even bother to name it. Most people just call it _'the junk'_.

She hurries towards the main street which is filled with panicking citizens. They push and pull each other around, trying to make it off the island. She feels a painful tug at her injured wing from behind, before she gets pushed to the ground by some idiot. She turns around to hiss at him, bearing her teeth at him. The man, standing tall and with big, vibrant and yellow wings, hisses back, punching her. She tumbles to the ground, stunned.

She tries to pick herself up again, but she doesn’t find the strength.

“ _No_ …”, she whimpers, before everything goes black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Like I said, Feedback is aprechiated, also... 
> 
> Any tips on what I should tag?  
> X'D
> 
> See ya in the next chapter!


	2. Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ion-canons strike again and Keith gets to meet Gin for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Careful! This... might be more serious and disturbing than I intended. Proceed with caution!  
> I don't want to accidentaly traumatize you! ;-;
> 
> So, a Little Translator for all of you that are unfamiliar with Gin's colourful swear-words:
> 
> Quiznack most likely meant something like 'Dang it' 10'000 deca-phoebs ago. In the present time it means 'Fuck'.  
> M'tkar basically means the same as Quiznack's modern meaning.
> 
> At'krei is used with the meaning of 'Shit', it's full formulation 'Ata akrei hir' literally means 'get started with hell', but it's basically never heard.
> 
> Dei'krat means 'Holy scratch' and is Gin's invention.

 

Nao awakens feeling incredible pain in her back. ‘ _Where am I?_ ’, she asks herself, trying to identify her surroundings. Everything is blurry.

“Ezra?”, she whispers, hoping to get an answer from her teammate. She gets none and she blinks a few times. When she finally identifies her surroundings, she’s tempted to scream. She’s laying on the cold metal floor of a cell, illuminated by ominous, purple light.

She tries to sit up, when she notices, that she’s cuffed behind her back. Oh, and her wings burn like hell. She somehow manages to get herself upright after a few ticks of wiggling around on the Floor. ‘ _Oh god, please no…_ ’, she thinks to herself, when the ache in her wings gets worse. She risks a glance at them, gasping at the sight.

‘ _Please no_ …’, she whimpers in her thoughts. Her wings are both torn at multiple stabilizing arches, and they’re stained with dried blood.

‘ _Like this, they’ll never heal_!’, she yelps in her thoughts, eyeing the obviously intentional cuts over her wings. Some of her prettiest scales are missing. She can only see a few of the green ones she cares for every day, and she winces.

“They’re ruined”, she whispers. Only recently she had learned to fly a bit, and now? The way her wings look, she’ll never fly again. A single whimper escapes her lips as she leans against the cold metal wall behind her…

"Whoever ruined them... prepare yourself for revenge", she hisses, bearing her fangs in fury.

* * *

 

When Gin awakens, everything seems strangely silent. _'How is it so silent? The world is literally being invaded by the Galra right now... we're in the apocalypse'_ , she thinks.  
There’s supposed to be panic, screams and explosions.

_Unless_ …  
Gin opens her eyes with a gasp, realizing she’s still on her home island. It’s destroyed though. The roof of the building she was standing on mere five dobashes ago (or has it been vargas?) has tumbled into pieces. She turns her head, observing her surroundings. The Island is in ruins and the streets are partially under water. She feels like she’s about to throw up when she spots a corpse. It was burnt beyond recognition  and is now floating in shallow water with its back facing upwards. That's when she spots another gruesome Detail.

Somebody cruelly cut of his wings.

She holds back on throwing up and averts her gaze. “I need to get out of here, and that fast…”, she whispers, trying to get up from her sore back. That’s when she feels the tearing pain in her left wing. She hisses in pain.  
She curses when she realizes what’s going on. She’s trapped under debris by her left, already injured wing. “ _M’tkar_!”, she hisses. There’s no way she can lift that thing off from her wing.

“Well _At’krei_ ”, she mumbles, sighing in defeat. Gin stares back up at the night sky. She sees the colourful nebula, as well as Lyron. That's when she spots movement, that shouldn't be there. The 'fireworks' have resumed.

“…What?”, she asks in disbelief. Nao and Ezra were imprisoned or dead. This makes no sense what so ever. Who’s left to fight against the galra? Gin has no idea.

"They might be shooting at themselves", she chuckles, trying to distract herself for a moment before resuming her serious attitude.

“I- I need to get free”, she whispers, turning her head a bit so she can see how badly her wing is trapped. A forth of the misshaped wing is trapped underneath, crushing the scales, nerves and blood-vessels. Oh, and it hurts like hell.

‘ _I could… pull it out, I guess_ ’, she thinks, grabbing her trapped wing in her hands and tugging at it experimentally. That sparks incredible pain and Gin yelps, stopping immediately. She sighs, letting her limbs fall flatly to the floor.

“I’m not going anywhere I guess…”, she whimpers, biting on her bottom lip to distract herself from the stinging sensation of her trapped wing. That most likely cut something and drew blood. A shiver runs down her spine.

Suddenly, without any warning, she can feel the island shift, as if the ground is shaking from an earthquake. She raises her head, spotting the saltwater trickling through some cracks in the concrete, raising the water-level of the already slinghtly flooded streets. She stares at her wing. It’s already being soaked by the water and the blood from her injured wing is staining it in crimson red.

“I-I’m going to drown with this Island…”, she realizes, gasping.

‘ _No. It can’t end like this_ …’, she grumbles in her thoughts. She doesn’t care that her wing won’t ever recover from this. Anything is better than drowning miserably, with no escape. A shiver runs down her spine before she sets herself back upright.

“This is going to hurt like being eaten alive…”, she whispers, before taking a deep breath.

‘ _ **Dei'krat** if anybody even cares about my wings anymore… they're abominations anyways_ …’, she thinks, closing her eyes and taking another deep breath.

* * *

 

The paladins are in _a bit_ of a pinch. They’ve just cut one of the flag-ships down with Voltron’s sword, but there’s no time for them to take a short break to even catch their breath, because they're being swarmed by galra fighters and drones.

Lance stares at the squadron approaching them, not really knowing what to do anymore. Keith is exhausted already from all this stress going on and Hunk is about to snap into a fully-blown panic-attack. He has no idea what Pidge is up to or how badly Shiro's actually biting his lip right now.

Nobody had expected this much Galra-presence in the orbit of the planet, and they have no idea yet how bad it could be on the surface. Pidge gasps when he notices the ion-canon being aimed at the planet's surface, at what she presumes must be their capital city.

“Guys! They’re targeting their cities!”, she yelps, alerting the others of the situation. Shiro growls when he sees the threat, quietly muttering a curse when he tastes blood on his tounge. That ion-canon could cause incredible amounts of destruction and death. He’s furious.

“Not on our watch! Hunk, shoulder canon! Keep the drones busy!”, he barks in a rush to come up with a plan.

“Got it!”, Hunk responds, activating the shoulder-canon with his bayard. The massive canon materializes on top of Voltron’s right shoulder and multiple small, blue energy blasts target the drones. As fast as the canon appeared, it disappeared again, dissolving into nothing.

“Now! While they’re busy! Form sword!”, Shiro orders. Keith doesn’t need to be told twice, already inserting his own bayard to form Voltron’s sword. They rush towards the ship, ready to strike, that’s when they get stopped by a particle barrier that protects the ion-canon of the ship.

“Damn it! What now, Shiro?!”, Pidge yelps, forming the shield to block a volley of fire from the drones.

“Guys, back to lion-forms! We have to hit it with all we got!”, he exclaims. The others voice their agreement, before they separate into the lions once again.

Pidge growls.  
“Have some veggies!”, she roars, before blasting the particle-barrier with her green-canon. Keith blasts it with all he got together with Shiro, while Lance is forced to deal with a few annoying drones first. Hunk aims his canon at the barrier, and still, it’s not enough to break the barrier.

“Quiznack! How much can this goddamn shield endure?!”, Keith complains, having to break off his own attack to take care of more drones momentarily.  
Lance prepares to give the shield a brain-freeze, when he notices that the canon is about to fire. And there’s Keith in the red lion, not noticing the imminent danger due to him being busy with blasting the drones, about to be blasted into dust by the ion-canon.

Lance’s heart skips a beat.

“Keith! WATCH AOUT!”, Lance screams, blasting over to push Keith out of the way.

Lance isn’t fast enough. The ion-canon fires it's energy-blast, and it catches both the red and blue lion. Both paladins scream loudly in pain. “Lance! Keith!”, the tree other paladins exclaim in shock.

Pidge's eyes widen in terror when she realizes that the blast dragged them along into the atmosphere of the planet. This will hurt a lot.

“ _No_!”, Shiro shouts, about to rush after them, but he gets intercepted by another squadron of drones. He roars in anger when they force him away from the planet.

He realizes they’re outnumbered. “Guys, we have to retreat back to the castle. We need to come up with a plan to get those two back!”, Shiro explains, trying to keep calm in this horrifying situation. and regain his composure.

“But Shiro- “, Hunk interjects, and Shiro interrupts him before he can add anything more onto his protest.

“Hunk, I know you’re worried about them, but we can’t win this fight right now!”, Shiro states, avoiding a blast from one of the other flagships.

“Got it…”, Hunk replies, feeling helpless.

“Retreat!”, Shiro orders once more, and the two other paladins follow him, with Pidge slightly hesitating.

“Pidge, they’ll be alright. I’m sure”, Shiro assures the green paladin, apparently having guessed from her being quiet and her being in-behind that she’s worried for both of her friends.

“They better be…”, she whimpers, taking a last look at the planet before rushing after her two remaining teammates.

* * *

 

Gin yelps in pain, staring at the stain of blood on her hands. Dei'krat, it hurts, especially with the salt-water burning on her wound. But now she’s free.  
She pants a bit, staring at the battlefield above her, watching the explosions. She gasps at a particulary big one in front of the moon. Somehow, one of the flagships got destroyed. She takes a few deep breaths before picking herself off the ground. She takes one last look at the sky.

That’s when she notices another blast and it’s heading straight for the island. “Why me!”, she whines, before dashing off towards the bridge.

‘ _Run. Run. Run_ ’, she thinks, biting her bottom lip to the point where it draws blood.  
She’s not even a few metres on the bridge when the blast hits her home island. Instinctively, Gin covers her ears.  She's thrown off her feet by the pressure of the impact. The bridge bends underneath her feet and she can feel cold water soaking her toe-tips through her worn-out shoes, her Shirt and already old pants. Her wound stings badly when it gets into the contact with more saltwater.

Gin raises her head to look at where the blast hit this time, still holding her ringing ears. She notices the smoke. “M’tkar… I can’t believe I’m doing this… It’s just as people say. Curiosity kills the lion. Or in this case, the zefrian…”, she mumbles when her own curiosity forces her to return to the island. She picks herself back up from the ground, groaning because of her aching limbs.

Gin slowly moves forward, trying to keep her own balance as she doesn’t want to slip on the metal of the bridge. Upon reaching the island, she passes the corpse in the water again, not giving it any second glance. She slowly strides through the water, approaching her destination- that mysterious smoke. She mutters a curse when something hinders her. A ruin is blocking her way. “Try again”, she mumbles, already beginning to climb over the debris, having to re-start multiple times when the debris tumbles down. Finally she reaches the, most likely instable, top of the ruined building.

Her eyes widen at the sight from the top of the ruin.

Two lion-like machines crashed on the island. They're covered in scorch-marks. They must have been dragged down by the energy-beam that attacked the island. That answers her question about what was attacking the galra-fleet. She gazes back up to the sky. The battle stopped, supporting the theory even more. She slides down the rubble, towards the machines and landing in the water with a slight splash.

Gin gulps down her fear, deciding on investigating the mysterious crash-site. When she reaches the bottom of the ruins, she realizes some water is seeping into the crater through cracks. The crater is rapidly filling up with water from the flooded streets as well, and it's covering the two machines up to what she assumes must be their chins. She yelps when one of them moves, rushing back to the ruin to hide behind the remains of what once must have been a wall.

She peeks out from her hiding spot, watching the scene in front of her with slight suspicion.

The red, lion-like machine, the one closer to her opens its jaw, makes a grumbling noise, and Gin doesn’t really know what to do. ‘ _Is it… growling at me_?”, she asks herself, fascinated by it. She goes back to hide when someone exits the machine through the jaw.

He looks slightly zefrian, but his ears are strange, them being too round to be one of her people. Also, he has black hair. That’s uncommon for her people. The only person with black hair she ever met was a merchant from the capitol, and that’s a long time ago. The biggest hint though is the fact, that he is missing any wings. That’s obvious through the tight red-and-white armour he is wearing. There's no way that any wings could fit under there.

She knows that some crazy people cut off their wings and claim to have fought in the battle against the galra, but he doesn’t even have any remains of wings. ‘ _He’s not zefrian’_ , she concludes, watching his movements as he limps over to the other machine.

‘ _What is he doing_?’, she asks herself, while quietly watching. She’s feeling slightly dizzy, which she blames the aftermath of the energy-beam for. The red machine rumbles again, this time resembling more of a purr. She gasps when he suddenly turns around, staring at her with wide, violet eyes.

Her cover is blown. “ _M’tkar_ …”, she mumbles, trying to back off and escape, resulting in her triping over a small piece of debris, falling backwards onto her injured wing with a yelp. The dizziness is overwhelming. She can barely distinguish his silouhette in the half-darknes of the night. It's getting bigger. Is he approaching her?

She hears muffled, foregin words. They make no sense to her.

‘ _Is he talking to me…?_ ’, she thinks, remaining silent. She’s had enough and finally lets the darkness wash over her, taking any pain with her consciousness.

* * *

 

Keith feels horribly sore.  
‘ _My cub, are you alright_?’, demands the familiar voice of the red lion in the back of his head. She gives a short growl, obviously worried again.

Keith sighs. ‘ _I’ve been better, but I’ll live_ …’, he responds in his thoughts, approaching the blue lion to check on Lance.

‘ _He’s alright. There’s actually someone else who could use your help_...’, the lion purrs in the back of his head, making him turn around.

“What?”, he whispers, looking around, spotting who Red is presumably talking about hiding behind the remains of a wall.

He’s staring at a girl with light-pink, long hair and bright, golden eyes, and she looks like she’s about to faint at any moment. She stumbles backwards, tripping over something and falling to the Floor with a thud. Keith dart’s forwards right away determined to check on her.

The girl seems disoriented when he reaches her. Not good. “Hey, can you hear me?”, he asks, snapping his fingers in front of her face, trying to get her to focus on him. In the next moment, she’s out cold. Keith carefully nudges her. She doesn’t respond.

“Red, I better not be endangering Lance’s life here…!”, he growls, while carefully picking her up. That’s when he notices her wings. His eyes widen at the sight of the blood.

“Quiznack”, Keith curses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You made it through?
> 
> AM I GLAD!~
> 
> So, does this need any warnings? It might classify for the violence-one... Ugh I have no Idea, that's why I'm depending on feedback right now.
> 
> Also, one day, two chapters. W O W, I'm on a roll~
> 
> I'll see if I can write in the lunch-break, but I can't promise anything...  
> See ya in the next chapter (hopefully!)


	3. Slow pace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith gets a closer look at Gin, the mysterious zefrian Girl with the strange wings, while Lance is feeling like hell.  
> Lance is still beat up.  
> The three remaining paladins are trying to come up with a way to find their missing teammembers.
> 
> Oh, and princess Seilyn hates shape-shifters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured out proper formating! Now I'll be spending the rest of the evening re-working the previous two chapters. I'll eliminate some Errors along the way and might reformulate some stuff.
> 
> Enjoy.
> 
> Oh, and sorry that this took forever.
> 
> \---
> 
> Oh, Hi! It's me again! I just edited this chapter and added some more interaction between Keith and Lance, changed some of Gin's attire as well as fixing typos! See ya!

Lance feels like he just went through hell and back. He can’t get his limbs to move and everything is blurry. ‘ _My paladin, are you alright_?’, he hears the voice of Blue in the back of his head. Lance blinks a few times, trying to focus on his surroundings.

“I’ve felt better…”, he admits, trying to get up and immediately regretting his move. A spike of pain hits him on his right side and he hisses in pain.

 _‘Don’t move. The red paladin is on his way’_ , she then purrs, trying to ease the pain with her mental company. Lance tries to take deep breaths, but the air underneath his paladin helmet feels uncomfortably hot, making it hard to breathe. A thick crack runs over his Visor, obscuring his limited sight even further. He pushes himself to pull the helmet off, letting it drop to the metal floor of Blue’s cockpit. Once again, he lays limply in his seat, waiting for Keith or the others to find him. He sighs, closing his eyes again. He prefers the others, though. Keith will just annoy him most likely.

Steps echo on the metal floor, spiking hope in him that somebody is here. “Keith?”, he asks weakly. He just feels so tired. The doors slide open behind him with a hiss, creaking a bit, apparently damaged by the crash.

“Keith?”, Lance repeats, attempting to sound alright. He fails miserably, as his voice breaks halfway through the call. He opens his eyes and tries to turn his head.

“Yeah, I’m here”, Keith acknowledges. A thump sounds when he places down the limp body of the girl on the floor of the cockpit, leaning her upright against one of the walls, making sure not to squish the wings in any way.

“Are you okay, Lance?”, Keith asks, stepping forward to check on his friend. He winces slightly at the sight of the dried blood on Lance’s forehead.

 _'Stupid. Why did he have to try to save me?_ ', he thinks, pushing a few strands of brown hair out of the blue paladin's face.

“I-I’ve felt better, but I’m gonna live. Just need a minute”, Lance mumbles, closing his eyes again. Keith sighs, turning back to the girl he picked up outside.

"You know, you didn't have to risk your live there. You shouldn't have. We could both be dead and Volton would be down two paladins", Keith states, not turning around to face Lance, instead focusing on the girl.

‘ _Geez, what the hell happened to her wings?_ ’, Keith thinks, kneeling to take a closer look at her. The Girl’s skin is very pale, reminding Keith of the colour of some pearls from Earth he’s seen so far. Her Face is scratched up slightly, creating an odd illusion of whiskers on her face. She’s wearing an odd combination of a black, long-sleeved shirt that leaves her stomach free and something reminiscent of dark brown jeans. They’re torn on her knees.

Keith decides to take a closer look at the wings. They look like butterfly wings that curled up like paper that fell into water and then dried again. They’re made up of dull brown scales, occasionally mixed up with dark- and light-grey scales, creating a pretty pattern on them. Sadly, about a fourth of her wing was torn away, creating an obviously painful, bloody wound.

He carefully reaches out to move the injured left wing slightly to get a look at the other side. There, he spots brilliant blue scales on the wings, creating the illusion of vibrant blue eyes. He can’t really understand the purpose of them, though. On earth, these eye-like marks are used to surprise and startle the butterflies’ predators. Why do these zefrians have them on their wings? Do they have predators, or is it a remaining part of ancient genes of their ancestors?  
He’ll ask her later when she’s awake again.

Lance doesn't respond to Keith's Statement, instead asking a question. “Who’s that?”, Lance asks, who’s leaning over the edge of his seat, eyeing the Zefrian with curiosity, “Is she a space-butterfly?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “I think she’s one of the Zefrians. I wonder what happened to her wing though. That wound is still fresh”, he explains, getting up to look for a first-aid-kit. Lance lifts his arm to point at its whereabouts, taking a wild guess at what he’s up to.  
Keith nods at him, walking over to it and getting the kit out of the hidden compartment.

* * *

 

“Quiznack! This is horrible! We have to find them before the galra get to them first!”, princess Allura exclaims when the remaining three paladins finally are able to contact the castle and fill in the two alteans about what occurred. During battle, nobody noticed that the paladins had lost connection to the castle. Something is blocking signals and transmissions from leaving the planet’s close proximity, and most likely it blocks any incoming signals, too.

“Well, that won’t be exactly easy. Zefria’s about to enter their storm-season. If we find a way to bypass this signal-blockade, we will still have trouble with atmospheric interferences”, Coran informs the princess and the paladins.

Shiro sighs. “It doesn’t help complaining about what’s opposing us. We should focus on the things that we can do to find them”, he states with a deep frown.  
Pidge nods. “Shiro’s right. There must be a way to find Lance and Keith!”, she states, her eyes full of determination to find the two missing paladins.  
“Well, then I might be of assistance. Our search-field is limited to the Capital, the main target of the galra-attack. Their lions were dragged down by the ion-canon of that flagship after all”, Coran says. Allura nods.

“While that is true, it still could be that the lions hit water”, Allura then interjects, making any slight hopes of narrowing the location down a bit crumble once again.

“Well, do we have any data on the currents? We could calculate the possible locations from there”, Hunk suggests, making Coran’s face turn bright.

“We might have some old data saved in the castle. I’ll dig through the recordings, but it could take a while, and there’s no guarantee they are still accurate. They could have changed their course or direction of flow…”, Coran states, already typing in something with one hand while facing the paladins.

“Split the data into two. I’ll lend you a hand sorting through the data”, Hunk offers, already taking a seat and activating his controls.

“Count me in, too!”, Pidge adds, jogging over to her own seat.

“A tempting offer, but I must insist that you rest. It was a tiring fight and you should be getting some sleep”, Coran declines.

“Forget it!”, the two paladins snap back, looking angered.

Shiro is about to add to the heated discussion, when something holds him back. He feels a tug in the back of his mind, a familiar presence poking at his thoughts. ‘ _Black_?’, he asks in his thoughts, slightly confused by the lion.

 _'_ _Come see_ _me’_ , the lion purrs, before retreating from his thoughts again before he can ask any questions.

“I’m not sitting around doing nothing while Lance and Keith are in trouble. They’re our friends! I can’t rest while I know that these two are out there and might need our help!”, Hunk exclaims. Pidge nods.

Allura shakes her head about those two stubborn paladins, when she hears the door behind her hiss open and shut quickly again. She turns around, noticing that Shiro left the bridge. ‘Where is he going?’, she asks herself, furrowing her brows in confusion.

“Eh? Did Shiro just leave?”, Pidge asks, turning around to face the door. Hunk stops talking, turning around to with a confused expression.

“Apparently…”, Coran confirms, tilting his head and twirling his moustache with his left hand.

“I’ll go check what he’s up to. You go on ahead and look up those currents”, Allura states, turning around to leave the bridge and to follow the black paladin.

She ends up in the lion hangars. ‘ _Oh, I should have known. His lion called for him_ ’, she realizes, sighing. She turns around to return to the bridge, leaving Shiro alone in the hangar.

* * *

 

Princess Seilyn groans at her own stupidity. The enemy somehow infiltrated the castle island, as well as impersonated a guard of house Primée. And she even fell for it.

‘ _How? How could I have fallen for this_?’, she scolds herself, turning her head to look at her captor. He’s bulky, and there’s no wings. At least she assumes it, because a purple cape is blocking her view of her captor's back.

‘ _Did he fold them in? No, silly me. He can’t be one of our people’_ , she realizes, huffing in defeat. Galra it is then. Galra have no wings. This makes way more sense to her. But how did a Galra get onto the planet, or even the palace? There could not have been a breech in security, right?

Another thing stands out to her now. The galra’s shoulders are wide. How is this possible? How could he have impersonated the guard with this body-frame?  
‘ _Unless_ …’, Seilyn thinks, realization dawning on her. He’s a shape-shifter, somehow.

Thanks to the knowledge from books, she knows that the galra are no shape-shifters. While they have varying body-builds, there’s no source telling her of galra with similar frames to her own people, nor do they tell about shape-shifting galra. The only species with that ability that she can think of are the people of Altea, an old race wiped out thousands of deca-phoebs ago, and to some extent the people of Lyron.

‘No, they couldn’t…’, she thinks, shaking her head. Lyri’I couldn’t possibly turn their backs on her people.

_They couldn’t._

_They wouldn’t._

_Right?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's quite short, eh? Sorry about that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to revisit the previous chapters of this work. 
> 
> Like always, comments would be apprechiated. I'd love to know what you think so far. 
> 
> I might start typing up chapter 4 now, so...  
> See ya (maybe in a few hours?)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!  
> Kinda bad news… Zero Ticks of Freedom kinda died for me. It's just not been working out. I don't think I'll be able to continiue it like this, but I might start it over again. I'm really sorry if I dissapointed anyone with this!
> 
> I hope you understand. 
> 
> And remember, This isn't the end just yet. I'm just going to focus on my newest big project for now - the "Quintmagic Chronicles". 
> 
> See y'all in my (future) other stories!  
> ~Ria


End file.
